1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to networking systems, and more specifically, to a method and system for selectively accelerating network communications.
2. Background of the Invention
Present-day network systems communicate through a variety of protocols and channels in order to interconnect computers, telephony devices and other systems that required data or voice communications. Quality of Service (QoS) is a designator that is used in network systems to assign or request desirable data transfer characteristics, such as delay and bandwidth characteristics for a given channel. Service quality can be assigned on a per-user basis to provide several levels of interconnect performance conforming to desired performance levels. Users may be charged fees for different performance levels. For example, a business connection or Internet Service Provider (ISP) serving multiple users will have a higher desired performance level than an individual residential customer, and the fees for such performance can be assigned accordingly.
QoS levels are typically set within a network by a configuration manager, which can be coupled to the network or coupled to a network component such as a router. The configuration manager is a program running on a computer that permits setting of network addresses such as Internet Protocol (IP) addresses, QoS requirements for a given connection between addresses and protocols to be used for communication between networked devices.
Within a wired network, QoS requirements related to TCP/IP networking performance are not as difficult to meet as with a satellite communications coupled network or with wireless networking systems. Communications using the transmission control protocol (TCP) require a one-to-one acknowledge response for each TCP segment (packet) communicated. The delays associated with satellite communications can make it impossible to efficiently utilize available bandwidth in the channel, since each end station must wait for responses for every transmitted TCP segment. Proprietary accelerated protocols can be used over the satellite portion of the network that alleviate the performance bottlenecks caused by acknowledgement delay, but use of these protocols is very processor and memory intensive. In order to avoid higher costs of processing power and memory for temporarily holding TCP segments until their receipt is confirmed on the other side of a satellite communications channel and for performing packet processing, it is desirable to provide an alternative to a completely accelerated communications channel or an communications channel that uses no acceleration.
Therefore, it would be desirable to provide a system and method for selectively accelerating network communications, so that satellite channels and other communications channels with long delays can be used for network communications, while not requiring the processing power and memory required to accelerate transmissions for all communications through a channel.